Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

The elevator that crushed an Ohio State University freshman to death last fall will reopen before students move out in early June.

But one of the students who was on the Stradley Hall elevator the night Andy Polakowski died said he wouldn't use it.

"I will never go in that elevator again," freshman Adam Weber said in an e-mail. "The only time I've used the elevators in the building was when I was on crutches, and even then I still took the stairs sometimes."

Weber said he's upset that university officials haven't told Stradley residents the elevator is about to reopen.

Another of the students on the elevator that night didn't object, though.

"Most of us have been wondering why it hasn't been running," freshman William Sininger, 19, of Muskegon, Mich., said in an e-mail. "I think most of us accept the fact that it was a freak accident and there was nothing any of us could do."

Polakowski, 18, died Oct. 20 after trying to get off the overloaded elevator as it unexpectedly descended from the third floor with its doors open. Polakowski's upper body became wedged between the ceiling of the elevator and the floor of the third-floor lobby.

The 24 people on the elevator that night exceeded the 3,125 pounds it was supposed to hold safely, although experts have said it still should not have moved.

Polakowski's family has hired an attorney, but no lawsuits have been filed against OSU, university spokesman Jim Lynch said. The family hired inspectors to examine the elevator in December.

The elevator is undergoing final repairs and inspections now, Lynch said last week. With its opening, all the OSU dormitory elevators found to have problems after the death will be back in service.

Freshman Cory Fleming, a Stradley resident, said that it'll be "a little weird" to ride the elevator, but he's sure students will use it anyway out of necessity.

"I'd be comfortable riding it, because a lot of people have been working on it, and they wouldn't reopen it if it wasn't safe," said Fleming, 19, of Upper Arlington.

Another resident, freshman Amber Brumbaugh, also wasn't concerned.

"I'm not afraid to get on any elevator, but it'll bother people who were on the elevator when the accident happened," said Brumbaugh, 18, of Akron.

The accident spurred an extensive review of elevator safety at Ohio State. New brake assemblies and a new safety device called a rope gripper have been installed on eight elevators, including the one that killed Polakowski.

Rope grippers keep an elevator car from descending if the main brake fails. Safety tests performed after Polakowski's death revealed that the main brake on that elevator failed to keep the elevator from moving downward. Rope grippers have been required by state law on new elevators since 2000. They must be added to older elevators when a car's brakes are replaced.

Lynch said Ohio State has inspected 90 elevators in 35 buildings since the accident and is hiring a consultant this summer to analyze the university's elevator operations. The university will decide whether it needs to make changes in how it operates, inspects and modernizes elevators after the consultant's examination, he said.

Ohio State is modernizing two elevators in Drackett Tower and two in the Fawcett Center as part of regularly scheduled maintenance, Lynch said.

An outside company checks, inspects and repairs OSU's elevators. Twice a year Ohio's elevator-inspection section, part of the Department of Commerce, also inspects the elevators.

Norm Martin, the state's chief elevator inspector, said his staff of field inspectors has grown to 44 since the accident with the addition of two new inspectors. A third will be added soon.

The additions aren't a result of the accident, however. They were needed because the number of elevators and other mechanisms the inspectors check grows by 800 to 1,500 a year, Martin said.

The accident has been a reminder to the state and its inspectors to be vigilant, he said, and it's also been a reminder to elevator owners and riders to be more careful.